In the spring in Tibet Plateau, everything in the nature joins the symphony of life. Snow begins to melt. Eagles hover in the sky. Although the cold spell can still be sensed in the wind, the peak green grass has broken through the soil in the warm sunshine.

In the spring of the Fire Rabbit Year (1987), Phurba Tashi Rinpoche left Kure Temple in his hometown for Yarchen Orgyen Meditation Monastery at the age of 19. Yarchen Orgyen Meditation Monastery was regarded as the second Copper-Colored Auspicious Mountain where Padmasambhava and millions of dakas and dakinis reside.

Yarchen Monastery was still in construction at that time. Rinpoche settled down in a grass hut built on the hill slope. That hut was a very shabby and low and there was no window. Four slim wood pillars supported the roof which was made of withered and yellow couch grass. The door was loosely scrabbled up with pieces of timber board. There was no bed but one or two very simple furnishings in the hut. A set of thin bedding was laid on the floor taking up more than half of the indoor area. There was no table either. A wood bowl was placed on the ground upside down besides the bedding. Nothing else. In the daytime there might be some sunlight shining in through the gaps in the door. Rinpoche used to sit on the ground everyday as he did not even have a meditation cushion.

Due to close connections in their past lives, Phurba Tashi Rinpoche had developed unparalleled faith in Lama Rinpoche (His Holiness Jamyang Lungtok Gyaltsen) as soon as he visited Yarchen Monastery for the first time. Since then he had longed for a photo of Lama Rinpoche. Although he could always see Lama Rinpoche in the lectures, or visualize Lama Rinpoche millions of times in his daily practice, even in his pure vision Lama Rinpoche was pervasively existent in everything anywhere at any time, he still wished to have a photo of Lama Rinpoche. But at that time such a wish was not easy to realize.

One day someone gave him a photo of Lama Rinpoche. That was a standard 3X5 inch color photo. Lama Rinpoche looked so sublime and full of wisdom and compassion in it. Rinpoche was more than happy as if he found a treasure. Holding the photo above his head with both hands he ran back to his hut. He took off his cassock, folded it up trimly and placed the photo on it reverently. After prostrated to Lama Rinpoche in the photo for hundreds of times, he looked at the photo with tears. He kept his eyesight on the photo and would not move away for a single moment.

Soon it got dark and it was even darker in his enclosed little hut. Lama Rinpoche’s image started to blur in the weak light. For the first time Phurba Tashi Rinpoche felt dissatisfied with this hut as there was no table to place this holy photo, nor sufficient sunlight to illuminate it.An alteration plan came to his mind.

It was not an easy job. But he did not worry too much as he had some experience from the reconstruction of Kure Temple. He then checked around the hut. It was unwise to make a window in the wall as it might cause the hut to collapse due to unbalance in gravity distribution. This was unfeasible. Bingo! Open a clearstory in the roof! That could be a good idea.

“Let me start!” Rinpoche could not wait until the next day. He would be so sad if Lama Rinpoche’s photo would be left in the dark of night. In the last sunshine before dark, he started his alteration project.

He found a piece of sheet film, then mixed water and soil to pug the mud. He built a small altar with a mud pie on which he placed the photo of Lama Rinpoche. He then climbed up the roof and hollowed out a square hole to the size of the sheet film. Then he carried the mud onto the roof and used it to seal the sheet film onto the hole. The moon had risen when he finished the work. He jumped off the roof. Without having a rest and washing his hands and face, he rushed into the hut to see how his work was done. The milky moon light came through the clearstory and shined on the photo on the altar. Lama Rinpoche’s face could be clearly seen and appeared more divine and solemn. Gazing at the photo, Phurba Tashi Rinpoche was in tears.

From then on he could see Lama Rinpoche any time. Everything became terrific because of this: the sky seemed even blue, the clouds looked so beautiful, the wind became so refreshing, the birds sang so euphoniously. Even the air smelled aromatic.

Time went on to summer in an instant. The grass turned green all over the mountains. The streams winding in the valleys were shining under the sun. The chains of mountains were made full of life with the retreat huts scattered on the hillsides.

But the weather was variable. One day in July, when Rinpoche went out in the morning, it was sunny and cloudless. When he was on the way back at noon, a piece of black cloud drifted east bound quickly and soon blocked the sun. A hail of icy breeze sneak-attacked the ground followed by the rage of lightning and thunder. Shortly heavy rain poured down.

Rinpoche first considered finding a shelter in a cave as his experience told him that such a rainstorm would not last long. But remembered that the hut might leak and cause damage to the photo of Lama Rinpoche, he rushed back despite the raindrops struck on him and the road had become slippery. He just ran and ran.

He ran back to his hut. The photo was still on the altar but stained by mud. Rinpoche did not attend to take off his robe which had been totally wet. He wiped his hand on the quilt and picked the photo up. He wiped off the mud very carefully with his sleeves. Perhaps caused by a tiny sand on his sleeve or the mud on the photo, perhaps just as a test to his faith, a very deep scratch appeared on the photo. Rinpoche could not hold his tears as he had never been so heart-stricken, even in the cynicism on the mendicant way to seek dharma teachings or scrambling for food with wild dogs in hunger and chilliness in Seda. Deep in his mind, he had realized that Lama Rinpoche had given him more love and care than his parents did, as well as more kindness than what the Buddhas in the past had bestowed him. In his eyes, this photo was worth much more than the whole universe filled up with gold and gems. In the next several months, he was still in deep sorrow and self-accusation for tainting the photo.

Rinpoche has always taken that precious photo with him. Every time on seeing it, those moments spent with Lama Rinpoche would come into his memory and put him in deep inspiration.

Rinpoche says “In the modern civilization, the economic abundance is unparalleled in the human history. Generally speaking, people do not have to worry about food or clothes. The Chinese people are preparing for the Beijing Olympic Games with great joy. But the world-shaking catastrophic earthquake took place in Wenchuan recently. It was unpredictable and most shocking even to the least concerned. Luxurious hotels have been used as places for corpse identification. However, death and devastation are usually easily forgotten aftermath. Human beings will soon again willow in attaching themselves to all kinds of solid reality in pursuit of happiness. But this is just a disguise of their desire for permanence. In pursuit of real happiness, we must dedicate to virtues. Otherwise our aim of having permanent happiness and our conduct of non-virtues are just poles apart. Lama Rinpoche teaches us ‘Reflecting on impermanence is the magic boot for diligence in dharma practice. If you realized that all objects are impermanent, you will not be bound by any kinds of illusion.’”